Three helicopters have assisted more than 100 tourists who spent the night at high altitude after they were rescued from a malfunctioning cable car in Spain's Canary Islands.

Most tourists had been airlifted by midday while a small group was walking down from the Teide volcano on Tenerife accompanied by rescue workers, said Lourdes Jorge, a spokeswoman with the regional emergency service.

No injuries had been reported, she said.

The volcano's cable car operator said that a security lock was triggered automatically for unknown reasons on Wednesday, leaving more than 250 people trapped in two cabins.

More than half of them were evacuated by the end of Wednesday, but 111 in the higher cabin were accommodated for the night in facilities more than 3,500 metres above sea level.